Are You Prepared For Marriage?

….Hey….it’s me…I was thinking…Oh I’m sorry…Here’s an invitation to what I’ve been wondering about lately. Welcome to my thoughts…..I was looking back at my life and to be quite honest I’ve been blessed…I have accomplished some of what I wanted at stage in my life. I love God with all my heart, I got an education, I have a career that I love, and a great place to work. I’m healthy, my family is with me and I have real true friends.

I was thinking about how I got it all. What did I do to get it all? I realized that for the most part I prayed and then got myself prepared for each step I took. When I finished high school I knew I wanted to go to college so I got prepared and made a list of schools I wanted then applied and don’t forgot that I prayed along the entire process. When I went to class, I learned the material and went home to go back over everything so that I’d be prepared for the exams. I got myself ready, I studied, I researched what I didn’t really know or understand. Well lets keep going…I promise you that I’m getting somewhere with this……I knew I wanted to buy a car someday but first I needed to learn how to drive!! I needed to get ready to get on the road before I could officially call myself a driver. I did a lot of praying because I was really afraid of driving my car on NYC streets. These were all challenges. Yet I prayed and God helped me during each phase.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I did something to prepare myself for the unknown. For college, for those exams, for that road test, for my monetary investment and read my bible to develop my spiritual life. So then I started to wonder…I wondered about the other things I’d like to see happen in my future…marriage…kids…however I began to realize when it comes to something as big as marriage that people aren’t getting themselves prepared. Something that will affect the rest of your life. Something so complicated as falling in love and staying together. Now I used the word complicated because it’s just that…Love and developing a relationship is hard work. Marriage is about two people becoming one. Have you ever wondered about what it would be like to take a course on marriage before you jumped the broom. I know you can’t know everything, but maybe…just maybe you could do some research, speak to a few married or divorce couples just to get some insight about the idea of happily ever after (if that is even at all possible cause living in today’s age is no fairytale)

How amazing would it be to know what pitfalls to avoid before you get to them before you get married? How to resolve issues? How to communicate your feelings? Isn’t it ironic that people get themselves prepared in one way or another for a lot of things in life but they don’t get prepared or try to figure out what it would take to have a successful marriage….?

If marriage is something your heart desires is there really anyway to get yourself prepared (and I’m not talking about when you are engaged already…way before that?)

I also ask you this…..

Do you feel like there is a way to get yourself prepared and if so what would you be willing to do to prepare for it? Have you done anything so far? If so what was it?

Why is it that with everything else we are ready to do the research to get ourselves prepared for the unknown…but we often walk into marriage thinking we can take a crash course at the alter?